The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, honors players who have shown exceptional skill at basketball, all-time great coaches, referees, and other major contributors to the sport. It is named after Dr. James Naismith, who conceived the sport in 1891; he was inducted into the Hall as a contributor in 1959.
To be considered for induction, nominees must meet certain prerequisites. Players must have been retired for at least five years before becoming eligible. Referees and coaches must have either been retired for at least five years, or, if they are still active, have coached or officiated for at least 25 years at high-school-level programs or higher. Those being considered for induction as contributors may be inducted at any time; the Hall of Fame and its committees evaluate whether contributions are significant enough for the nominee to be inducted as a contributor. Teams are also inducted at the committees' discretion.
As of the induction of the Class of 2012 on September 7, 2012, the Hall has formally inducted 314 individuals (152 players, 85 coaches, 3 as both players and coaches, 60 as contributors, and 14 referees) and 9 teams. The 2012 class consisted of six players, two coaches, two contributors, one referee, and one team.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, members, memorial, basketball, hall and/or fame:
“Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list of women’s issues.”
—Charlotte Bunch (b. 1944)
“Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“I esteem it the happiness of this country that its settlers, whilst they were exploring their granted and natural rights and determining the power of the magistrate, were united by personal affection. Members of a church before whose searching covenant all rank was abolished, they stood in awe of each other, as religious men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
“Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome;
Where his clear spirit leads him, there’s his road,
By God’s own light illumined and foreshadowed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Death makes no conquest of this conqueror,
For now he lives in fame though not in life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)